Coronavirus: Italian teachers and students struggle to adapt to learning from home as outbreak shuts schools

Internet has helped keep lessons going but concerns remain over how younger children can carry on with distance learning, writes Alessio Perrone

An empty lecture hall of La Sapienza University in Rome (Getty Images)

Like 8.4 million other Italian students, Stefania did not go to class today.

Instead, she stayed home in her hometown of Oristano, a city in west Sardinia, studying Spanish literature – and worrying about how the school year will end.

“I am one of the high school students that will have to take the maturità [the Italian A-levels] this year,” she explains, worrying that exams might be postponed.